Taxes are skewed against people who make high annual earnings for short amounts of time, and you also have to take 10% or so out for your agent.

You'll still come out ahead with the baseball career, just not by quite as much.

For players in the minor leagues, trying to work their way to a spot in the show, the salary numbers are nowhere near as good:

http://www.baseballamerica.com/minors/players-sue-for-better...

While major leaguers’ salaries have increased by more than 2,000 percent since 1976,” the lawsuit says, “minor leaguers’ salaries have, on average, increased only 75 percent since that time.”

That leaves minor league salaries typically ranging from $1,100 a month in short-season leagues to $2,150 a month for Triple-A, figures asserted in the lawsuit and confirmed by two major league front-office officials.

But in baseball, almost every player has to play in the minors first. The majority of minor leaguers don't make it to the majors... but it isn't usually possible to tell which type of minor leaguer you'll be for a few years.

So in pursuing professional baseball, you really do open yourself to a significant risk of finding that you're 26 and spent the last five years making very little money and now you don't have a job, or any professional skills beyond the offseason job you may have worked.

Not to mention that you can start a new career once you're done playing ball.